Arsenal spent the whole of 2025-26 being mocked for how they scored, then won the league by seven points anyway. Their first title since 2003-04 was built on a part of the game most clubs treat as an afterthought, and the numbers behind it still look like typos. Anyone weighing up the Arsenal vs Leeds United odds for October 10 needs to understand what happens when the Gunners win a corner.
A record that had stood since 1992-93
Arsenal scored 19 goals from corners in the Premier League last season. The previous best was 16, set by Oldham Athletic in the competition’s opening campaign and matched by West Bromwich Albion in 2016-17 and Arsenal in 2023-24.
Add indirect free kicks, direct free kicks and long throws, and Mikel Arteta’s side finished on 25 non-penalty set-piece goals, the most in the division. That is the context for 71 goals scored and 85 points. No Premier League champion had previously taken more than 30% of its non-penalty goals from dead balls. Arsenal cleared that bar with room to spare.
Rice owns the left, Saka the right
Declan Rice delivered 95 corners, 87 of them from the left. He also took 130 indirect free kicks, 45 of them crossed into the box, five direct free kicks and 24 throw-ins into the penalty area. Bukayo Saka covered the right with 65 corners and Noni Madueke chipped in with 38.
Rice’s corners produced seven goals, a tally only Bruno Fernandes beat, and chances worth 6.9 expected goals, the best of any taker. By the start of May, Arsenal had created more shots from corners than any other side, worth 12.1 expected goals. They were not getting lucky.
The routine behind it
Nicolas Jover arrived from Manchester City in July 2021 after spells at Brentford and Montpellier, and his fingerprints are all over it. The idea is to crowd the goalkeeper inside the six-yard box so the delivery cannot be claimed, then attack the flick-on at the back post.
Gabriel is the primary target and won first contact on 13 crossed corners last season. The scoring is shared out. Jurrien Timber, Gabriel, Mikel Merino and Martin Zubimendi all scored more than once from corners, and opponents turned the ball into their own net twice under the same pressure.
Arsenal are not alone in this. Some 27.4% of all Premier League goals in 2025-26 came from non-penalty set pieces, the second-highest share in the competition’s 34 seasons. The difference is that Arsenal are better at it than everyone else.
The half that nobody talks about
Attacking corners get the headlines, but the defending decided the title. Arsenal conceded only eight non-penalty set-piece goals across the campaign, a net swing of 17 goals from dead-ball situations and the best figure in the league.
They also became the first team to complete a Premier League season without a red card and without conceding a penalty, and David Raya kept 19 clean sheets. Only 27 goals went past them all league season.
That is what makes them so awkward to price up in football betting markets. A side that scores from corners at a record rate and refuses to concede from them has removed a chunk of the randomness everyone else lives with.
What Leeds can expect
Leeds visit the Emirates on 10 October with recent history to worry about. Arsenal won 4-0 at Elland Road in January, and two of those goals came from corners. Zubimendi headed in after one was half cleared and worked back, then Madueke swung another in and Leeds turned it into their own net.
The Emirates meeting five months earlier went the same way. Arsenal won 5-0, and both of Timber’s goals came from Rice corners, the second poked in after his header was blocked.
Little has changed since, beyond Bruno Guimaraes arriving as another head in the box. Rice and Saka still take the corners, Jover still runs them and Gabriel still attacks the first ball. Leeds conceding a corner in a dangerous area is not a neutral event, and the first one may well settle the afternoon.
